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Welcome, visitors from Captioning Sucks!

We’re glad you discovered the Open & Closed Project via Captioning Sucks! Because, really, captioning does suck. But it isn’t the only thing that does, and it isn’t our sole concern.

Who we are and what we’re doing

We’re an independent research research project in Toronto. We have one big goal – to research, write, test, and publish a set of standards for four fields of accessible media:

Why? Because there are no independently developed, tested standards for those fields. Really, there aren’t, even today, nearly a century after subtitling and dubbing began, 30 years after captioning became commonplace, and a decade and a half after audio description started up in earnest.

What do we have instead of independent standards? No standards at all, or something that passes for a standard that was developed in secret and never tested. The result will be familiar to you – not just low quality, which you might notice right away, but a lack of consistency. We believe that people with disabilities, and others, should not have to relearn how to watch every TV show, commercial, and movie just because they’re all captioned or described differently (to use a few examples).

We expect it will take four to six years to write standards for the four fields of accessibility.

We’re all about evidence

What sets us apart from previous so-called standards is a reliance on evidence. Just like you, and just like the authors of previous so-called standards, we have opinions, but we prefer to rely on facts. There’s a wealth of research already available on the four fields we’re interested in (see our large bibliography), and we use that as a starting point. If there isn’t any research on a specific topic, we’re going to do it ourselves.

We’re all about openness

Unless we’re legally required to keep something confidential, everything we do will be published openly and everyone may contribute.

We’re all about testing

Also unlike the failed “standards” of yesteryear, we intend to test our specifications to prove they work. We expect to spend a full year testing our specifications in the real world to prove that they work. You won’t have to take our word for it.

We’re all about certification

After the standards are published and tested, we’ll develop curricula to certify practitioners. Not only will there be an independently developed standard, you’ll be able to hire, or insist upon the use of, skilled professionals who have passed stringent tests in the application of those standards. It will actually be possible to become a certified captioner, audio describer, subtitler, or dubbing artist – for the first time.

And we’re doing a couple of other things, too

We have a couple of side projects – one on new and improved fonts for captioning and subtitling and another that seeks to write a new open file format for the four fields of accessibility.

How much is this going to cost?

Maybe $7 million. That’s peanuts.

So: How’s it going for us so far?

Not very well. We have support letters from many organizations in several countries. Nobody, at all, has managed to articulate an objection to our plans. It’s self-evidently a great idea, and it’s cheap.

We’ve applied for funding repeatedly and we haven’t even been acknowledged in most cases. In fact, various industries have begun meeting behind closed doors to write new so-called standards themselves. Instead of funding us, what amount to secret industry cabals are committing the same mistakes all over again. (You may be surprised to learn that secret industry cabals really exist. We were too – but that’s what they are, and they’re working against your interests.)

So why did we launch Captioning Sucks? To increase awareness of the need for open standards, and of the Project, among users of the most common accessibility technique in audiovisual media (captioning). We’re trying to get the word out. We aren’t looking for funding from individuals, but we are looking for support.